Attributing the 2017 floods in Bangladesh to climate change gave unexpected results: no trend in extreme rainfall up to now, but a trend towards more extremes is projected as the aerosol cooling is reduced. Hydrological models show the same for discharge. https://www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/23/1409/2019/

Impacts of the North Atlantic subtropical high on interannual variation of summertime heat stress over the conterminous United States [link]

Social science, technology & policy

MIT has demonstrated that nuclear is required in any energy mix that attempts to achieve an optimal zero-carbon outcome. The stricter the CO2 target, the more nuclear is required. If no nuclear is employed at all, costs increase two- to fourfold. [link]

Scientific leaders have no monopoly on expertise, nor do they have a privileged ethical standpoint, for evaluating the social consequences of science and of science policies [link]

The right way to deal with extreme weather. In setting out a plan to make Manhattan better prepared for extreme weather, Mayor Bill de Blasio is delivering a sorely needed message on climate change. [link]

90 responses to “Week in review – science edition”

“The ship-based data show that deep ocean temperatures rose an average rate of 1-thousandth of a degree Celsius per year between the 1990s and the 2000s and that rate doubled to 2-thousandths of a degree per year between the 2000s and the 2010s. The Deep Argo floats reveal a tripling of the initial warming rate to 3-thousandths of a degree per year over the past four-plus years.”

How do those numbers compare to any multidecadal period since the end of the LIA? Greater? Less? The same?

The Green New Deal’s target date of 2030 for a 100% carbonless economy is an opening bargaining position intended to generate headlines and to focus media attention on those promoting the policy.

Over the next several years, the GND’s goal posts will shift towards President Obama’s original target of an 80% reduction in America’s carbon emissions by 2050.

Even with a target date of 2050, it is impossible to reach an 80% reduction without imposing considerable sacrifice on the American people in the form of strictly enforced energy conservation measures combined with steep increases in the cost of all forms of fossil fuel energy.

Furthermore, it is impossible to reach 80% by 2050 without a massive commitment to nuclear power, and to manage the energy market transition in a way which leaves no choice but to sacrifice the benefits of market competition with natural gas in keeping a lid on nuclear’s costs.

In any case, the Green New Deal’s advocates are likely to be in full control of the federal government in 2021, and they will then be forced to put real meat on their GND energy policies.

Will the Democrat’s 2021 plan be something new and different, or will it be a rehash of Barack Obama’s plan from a decade earlier updated with Green New Deal rhetoric, but containing little else of real substance?

Beta Blocker,
But it’s not just CO2 because there are so many lines of evidence that shows the environment is being altered on a global level. Curry earlier linked to a study that proclaimed the earth is getting greener (thanks to China & India) demonstrating our ability to affect the planet’s biosphere because we wanted to.
We can Terra-form the planet biologically, physically and chemically. We are already doing it but without a blueprint. The ultimate prize is that blueprint. A integrated design to actually plan ahead for the next 200 to 500 years. Project Drawdown is one example of a planet wide approach but it would only be a sketch of what our technology is capable in 50 or 100 years. Just the science and technology of genetics and machine learning will expand our options with unimaginable capabilities.

Is your your work on the bogs of Dartmoor related to the article “Widespread global peatland establishment and persistence over the last 130,000 yrs”?

PS: My family and I are thinking about traveling to England in July 2020; to visit some of the Mayflower 400 sites and South Devon College, and, hopefully visit you. We are visiting the college because my granddaughter might want to attend; she’s interested in its 2 yr animal management course.

I am not a Doctor but thanks for believing I am. Any work I have done looking at the bogs on Dartmoor and its fluctuating periods of extremes of wet and dry and its effect on the landscape in historical times is limited and are not related to any global research work.

It would be great to see you and your family. Plymouth is not far away but the bus to South Devon college passes my house 3 times an hour! Small world.

Its a well regarded college but its not a University, which suits many people. I do not know how well regarded the 2 year animal management course is.

I’ll go for unaccountable (no political control) here, Mr. Mosher. I’ll also go for ad hoc (avoiding the usual U.S., UN and NGO bureaucratic/political suspects). As for transparency, the whole world will see their work product.

The activists can and will do their best to discredit the committee and its work. The activists will have the entire political establishment and world media in their corner. But, we’ll see who has the better argument. Facts will out.

I hope the committee will not go to your patented ‘Wandering in the Weeds’ dithering. They should stick to the basic science, including the fact that the predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot has not occurred (the physics is just not with the alarmists), the prior use of unvalidated UN IPCC climate models (not science) to push alarm, etc.

Practical, non political/pecuniary scientists will have little trouble pointing out the non-scientific manure pile that has been pushed by the (one world) UN and its conflicted IPCC, self-interested NGOs, socialist/Marxist ideologues, aspiring politicians of every stripe, rent-seeking corporatism, academic/bureaucratic careerism and plain old greed of those gaining from their participation in a scientific fraud.

“I’ll go for unaccountable (no political control) here, Mr. Mosher. I’ll also go for ad hoc (avoiding the usual U.S., UN and NGO bureaucratic/political suspects). As for transparency, the whole world will see their work product.”

You dont understand transparency then, and you dont understand things like the data quality act.

Recall of some of us ( Judith included) complained about the lack of transparency with the IPCC.

Producing an end product doesnt give you transparency.
Merely publishing something for others to read doesnt give you transparency

“I hope the committee will not go to your patented ‘Wandering in the Weeds’ dithering. They should stick to the basic science, including the fact that the predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot has not occurred (the physics is just not with the alarmists), the prior use of unvalidated UN IPCC climate models (not science) to push alarm, etc.”

Gosh, since the science says otherwise ( there is a hotspot) I sure HOPE
they dont merely repeat debunked talking points from years ago.

“unvalidated”

too funny. hey maybe YOU should be on the commitee.

But here is what I hope for.

A Full presidential committe that operates like other presidential commissions

For example

Facts Relating to the Attack made by Japanese Armed Forces upon Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941 (Roberts Commission)
President’s Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Warren Commission)
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (Iraq Intelligence Commission)
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission)

I would Hope that they have a broad representation from across the skeptical side of the question. That means including people like Anthony Watts, Tony Heller, Patrick Moore, Nic Lewis, Judith, all the top skeptical names we know. And it should be well funded.

You want some little report that a few guys cobble together.
i want an actual history making presidential commission.

Mr. Mosher, are you referring to that unethical Santer’s supposed identification of a tropical tropospheric hot spot? If so, get better sources.

As I expected, you have proposed a lengthy, convoluted process driven by status quo insiders. Political actors will affect the process. Any conclusions/report will appear years in the future, heavily edited for consistency with then-current ideology. [It is a shame that the reports of the various commissions you cited were predetermined at their onsets. Those topics are still highly contentious and I refuse to discuss them; they are rabbit holes of conspiracy theories.]

Here is the problem: The GND-type proposals are being discussed now. Legislation is being prepared now. The activists’ vanguard of children is marching now. The public is being stampeded by unscrupulous media now. Accordingly, scientific sanity is required now, not years down the road. We do not have time for Wandering in the Weeds.

If you believe the basis of our current CliSci is anything other than politics/ideology, then we have nothing to discuss. If you believe that water vapor/clouds significantly amplify the minor theoretical warming of CO2, then we have nothing to discuss. If you believe Mann, et al are competent, unbiased scientists, then we have nothing to discuss. If you believe UN IPCC climate models accurately predict the future, then go back to hawking Chinese Bitcoin mining machines.

It is a committee, not a commission, hence less formal, probably with a relatively narrow mandate (if it actually happens). This narrow mandate is to assess those federal reports which relate to security (Happer is with NSC). The likely result is that they will point out the undue alarmism. For example, the National Climate Assessment is based almost entirely on speculative, worst case computer modeling. (I filed 99 separate comments to that effect, all ignored.)

“Raising nonsensical/remote fears are a delaying tactic and an attempt to demonize one’s opponents at the same time.”

nonsensical?

1. There is no fear involved. I’m suggesting that it should be more important not less important.
2. There is no delay involved, it can be decided today.
3. Demonize? on the contrary, if you elevate the profile of the investigation and report, the participants will be heros, if they are correct.

you dont want some little ad hoc committe that makes narrow little comments only about national security and climate change..

I mean seriously, we have had a republican in the white house for over 2 years and we can get a proper red team done?

FFS!

And now all we get is a ad hoc committee that will make a report saying
computer models may overstate the risk to national security?

Dave Fair wrote: “They should stick to the basic science, including the fact that the predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot has not occurred”

Atomsky complains: Please let folks know when you finally read some of the scientific literature, instead of just repeating contrarian myths you heard online.” Atomsky cites two papers (without links). The conclusion Atomsky draws from these paper appears to be totally unjustified.

This paper is about tropical cyclones, not the putative hot-spot in the upper tropical troposphere. The caption for the top Figure Atomsky provided shows that a “hot spot” is present over only a small fraction of the tropics for part of the year.

According to the abstract, this paper deals only with changes in the stratosphere, where both the enhance GHE and ozone destruction cause cooling. The period studied is only 2002-2016. We have nearly forty years of satellite data about temperature in the upper tropical troposphere and an even longer, though potentially inhomogeneous radiosonde record. This 14-year study shouldn’t change the conclusions of earlier work and the authors don’t claim to have done so.

Thank you, franktoo. You saved me a lot of time responding to Atomsky. [The term alot is more elegant.]

The picture of homogenized radiosonde temperature data with wind is always a side-splitter. There is a reason nobody references that ‘study’ anymore. Ideology oftentimes trumps scientific rigor, though. Its too bad that many support the ‘the end justifies the means’ school of thought.

Everybody, including Mr. Mosher and Atomsky, knows what “lack of a hot spot” means: Actual temperature measurements in the troposphere, especially in the tropics, fail to track the extremes predicted by the UN IPCC climate models. Such models are tuned to excessive ECSs, and are not reliable enough for the purpose of fundamentally altering our society, economy and energy systems.

Re: “This paper is about tropical cyclones, not the putative hot-spot in the upper tropical troposphere. The caption for the top Figure Atomsky provided shows that a “hot spot” is present over only a small fraction of the tropics for part of the year.”

You contradicted yourself by first saying the paper is not about the hot spot, and then admitting that it shows the hot spot. Please try to be consistent, and read the studies you discuss. The paper discusses tropical upper tropospheric warming and mentions that multiple times. That would have been made clear to you even if you read nothing more than the abstract:

“Westward shift of western North Pacific tropical cyclogenesis
[…]
The westward shifting trends in the TUTT and TC genesis are associated with the enhanced tropical tropospheric warming, which is consistent with the response of the tropospheric temperature to global warming.”

Re: “According to the abstract, this paper deals only with changes in the stratosphere, where both the enhance GHE and ozone destruction cause cooling. The period studied is only 2002-2016.”

And again you discuss a paper you didn’t actually read. Nowhere did the paper say it only deals with changes in the stratosphere, not even in the abstract. You simply invented that. For example, the paper notes:

We’ve been over this before, Frank, in our previous discussions; please do not misrepresent things you have not read, especially to me when I’ve read them.

Re: “We have nearly forty years of satellite data about temperature in the upper tropical troposphere and an even longer, though potentially inhomogeneous radiosonde record. This 14-year study shouldn’t change the conclusions of earlier work and the authors don’t claim to have done so.”

Numerous problems with what you said.

First, the paper is on GPS-RO, which is satellite data. They’re comparing it to AMSU data, which is also satellite data; that’s in the title of the paper. Second, you didn’t read the caption for the figure very closely, since Sept 2001 to Dec 2016 is not 14 years; it’s longer than that. Third, I suggest you stop making claims about what “authors don’t claim” and claim in a study you didn’t read.

Fourth, the authors don’t need to overturn the conclusions of earlier work, since earlier work already showed the hot spot. There’s been evidence of the hot spot since at least 2004, with a paper from the NOAA/STAR satellite-based team:

Evidence continued to accumulate scientific evidence then. This includes the third paper I cited on radiosondes in my previous comment, which you simply ignored. And it also includes multiple satellite-based analyse that show the hot spot.

Once again, Frank, please spend time reading the peer-reviewed literature, instead of acting as if you know “the conclusions of earlier work” which you have not read. For instance, if you’re going to make claims on satellite analyses, I suggest you actually read papers on them:

“Temperature trends at the surface and in the troposphere
[…]
The trends in zonal averages of MSU channel 2 tropospheric temperature and in surface air temperature estimated in this paper should be considered as observational evidence of tropical tropospheric amplification phenomenon, previously known mostly from climate models”

Re: “The picture of homogenized radiosonde temperature data with wind is always a side-splitter. There is a reason nobody references that ‘study’ anymore. Ideology oftentimes trumps scientific rigor, though. Its too bad that many support the ‘the end justifies the means’ school of thought.”

Thank you for illustrating the very behavior you discuss. Here’s a citation list for the paper in question, via Google Scholar:

The paper was cited dozens of times, include in peer-reviewed research published in 2019, such as this paper from 2 weeks ago:

“Changing available energy for extratropical cyclones and associated convection in Northern Hemisphere summer”

And the paper was also cited in research co-authored by contrarians such as John Christy and Roy Spencer. So it’s simply absurd for you to claim “nobody references that ‘study’ anymore”. You invented an easily falsified claim that lacks scientific rigor, in order to support your ideologically-motivated narrative against scientific evidence you find inconvenient. Congratulations on doing the very thing you claim others do. That will be helpful to keep in mind the next time you start listing off evidence-free, politically-expedient claims.

Please identify studies that, using that paper’s identification of a tropical tropospheric hot spot, that produce results consistent with UN IPCC climate models’ predictions of a significant hot spot. Minor warming of the troposphere is not denied.

List the studies citing that Santer nonsense, studies that conclusively prove the tropical troposphere has been warming as predicted in the UN IPCC climate models. That is what is being discussed. Not minor tropospheric warming.

Steven Mosher, from another thread: • Better to focus on criticising the things that you can show are stupid and are wrong rather than argue about things where they respond that you are stupid and we’re not going to listen to you at all.

So, are you ready to agree that California’s approach of building wind and solar farms while neglecting the flood control and irrigation infrastructure is stupid and wrong? What are your examples of stupid and wrong approaches to “climate control”?

Mosher: We have devised to mutually incompatible systems for making decisions about controversial information. In politics and the law, we have an adversarial system where both sides are guaranteed equal opportunity to make their best case – without either side being constrained to be honest about the problems with the evidence that supports their position or candid about the evidence that does not. To the extent that the system works, it works because both sides have the opportunity to present their case. Scientists (originally rich gentlemen belonging to an elite club) generally don’t have the resources to waste on an adversarial system: They are expected to “tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, with all of the ifs, and, buts and caveats”. However, those chosen as key IPCC authors were those who recognized a need to tell scary stories, make sweeping generalizations, suppress their doubts, and get lots of publicity. To guarantee that none of those “ifs, ands, buts, and caveats” – that are essential to ethical science – are found in a Summary for Policymakers, there is a requirement that more than 100 government representatives must unanimously agree to the wording of the SPM.

Thus we have the worst of both the adversarial and scientific systems. CO2 is being tried by a judicial system consisting of a self-perpuating group of activist scientists serving as prosecutors, judge and jury – without a defense attorney or defense witnesses allowed in the courtroom. A courtroom that excludes the press and is supervised by environment groups. The outline of the verdict for AR6 was drafted several years ago, and it is not in doubt. It won’t be changed by new evidence. (When it is relatively easy to tune for higher climate sensitivity, would any modeling group dare submit output from an AOGCM with an ECS less than 2?) CO2 IS guilty. It is, after all, a GHG, and GHGs slow radiative cooling to space, thereby warming the planet. Despite our dependence on fossil fuels, activists have proclaimed even 1 degC or even 0.5 degC more warming a capital crime, even though past warming has been net beneficial.

(Sorry if I exaggerate slightly.)

The NIPCC report, prepared under supervision of the Heartland Institute, is no different, but the missing caveats are far larger and more important. The IPCC is guilty of attempted murder of our fossil fuel based economy.

In my dreams, a Happer committee would simply add all of the scientific “ifs, ands, buts and caveats” to the SPM from AR5 WG1. Almost all of the original conclusions would be reworded to begin with: “If our climate models are correct (in bold), then …” There would be a much needed section on why our climate models might not be correct, a subject not discussed by the SPM or the full report. The attribution statement would contain the caveat that many AOGCMs may have been tuned with the objective assigning roughly 100% of warming to man. (When models can be tuned, who wants to be associated with a model that can’t explain the global warming we have observed?) The IPPC’s attribution analysis depends on circular reasoning. Finally, the report would clearly note that only scientific conclusions described as being “extremely likely or virtually certain) are normally reported in the abstract of a scientific paper. Conclusions described as being “likely” or even “very likely” are not part of traditional scientific understanding, but they have been kept because science doesn’t always progress fast enough to meet the needs of policymakers. (Policymakers often need to make decisions without full information.)

Of course, President Trump (and probably his allies) doesn’t care about the traditions of the legal adversarial system or ethical science. Instead of permanently damaging the credibility of the IPCC by exposing their omissions and distortions (and possibly forcing them to reform), the result will be ignored.

David Fair: I recognize that the absence of a hot spot discredits AOGCM’s, but it also casts doubt on the importance of negative lapse rate feedback. I prefer the simple idea that well-mixed regions in the atmosphere have a moist adiabatic lapse. I was eager to see Atomsky’s new evidence. I certainly didn’t want anyone else to waste their time, so I reported what I found (with links).

Thanks for your work, franktoo. I am only vaguely familiar with the issues surrounding lapse rate and any feedback responses. I do some more background reading and try to follow the arguments as they relate to atmosphere-to-surface warming from ‘greenhouse’ gasses.

It is my general understanding that changes in the lapse rate will reflect/accentuate ‘greenhouse’ gas atmospheric warming to the surface. I’m just not sure which is the dog and which is the tail.

Yet you failed to provide any evidence against its existence, but instead misrepresented research you had not read.

Re: “CO2 is being tried by a judicial system consisting of a self-perpuating group of activist scientists serving as prosecutors, judge and jury – without a defense attorney or defense witnesses allowed in the courtroom.
[…]
The IPCC is guilty of attempted murder of our fossil fuel based economy.”

Good to know the sort of politically-motivated mind-set / bias you bring to your evaluation of climate science and scientific research.

Dave Fair wrote: Re: “They should stick to the basic science, including the fact that the predicted tropical tropospheric hot spot has not occurred”

Atomsky replied: Please let folks know when you finally read some of the scientific literature, instead of just repeating contrarian myths you heard online.

I complained that neither of Atomsky’s papers demonstrated that the predicted hot spot exists. And since the abstract of neither of these papers made any claims about the existence of a hot spot, the authors of these papers obviously don’t believe they have made a significant contribution to the hot spot controversy. (IMO, the hot spot controversy is about the existence of amplified warming in the upper troposphere compared to the surface, not any warming in the upper troposphere. For me, radiative transfer calculation alone tell us that the stratosphere should cool and the troposphere should warm and observations are consistent with this prediction/fingerprint. The hot-spot controversy is mostly about whether AOGCMs correctly predict how that warming is distributed within the tropical troposphere, ie whether the models correctly predict the change in tropical convection/overturning in response to warming. Model climate sensitivities are very meaningful if they get this wrong.)

Recognizing the weakness of his position, Atomsky cited a third paper (Po-Chedley, 2013), again without providing a link

This paper discusses corrections for diurnal drift to the satellite temperature record and has a brief section on how much amplification is present the corrected data. The Table he cites (again omitting the caption) shown below

“TABLE 4. T24 trends (K/decade) over 1979–2012 in the tropics (208S–208N) over land, ocean, and the entire tropical region, as derived from various MSU/AMSU datasets. The values in parentheses are the amplification ratio, which is defined here as the T24 trend divided by the HadCRUT4 surface trend. We compute T24 using T24 5 1.1TMT 2 0.1TLS. The UW and UWGCM T24 trends are calculated using TMT from the present study and TLS from NOAA STAR v3.0 data.”

There is indeed a modest amount of amplification. But what is “T24 temperature”? That is the temperature of the whole tropical troposphere, not specifically the upper troposphere! In fact, the abstract specifically says: “Using a homogenized TMT dataset, the ratio of tropical tropospheric temperature trends relative to surface temperature trends is in accord with the ratio from GCMs.”

The IPCC’s climate models predict amplification of 2.2 (about 1.8 to 2.5) between the surface and 250 mb, so this paper isn’t really about that predicted hot-spot. The problem is that satellites measure radiation and calculate temperature for a range of altitudes, and the sensor most responsive to the hot spot includes part of the lower stratosphere. There have been massive changes in both the UAH and RSS records since 2013 and they now disagree significantly. It would be interesting to know what the revised records say about the hotspot.

One can obtain better vertical resolution from radiosondes. In 2013, climatedialogue.org hosted a online debate about the hot spot featuring Mears, Sherwood, and Christy, which allows readers to hear an learn from both sides. Christie’s Figure 4 compares radiosondes to models and there is a massive inconsistency at 250 mb. In fact, discrepancies are observed at all altitudes beginning with the top of the boundary layer where radiosonde. (Some commenters suggest the discrepancy arises between the surface and the top of the boundary layer.) If these experts didn’t spend most of their time arguing about satellite data, I would conclude the radiosonde data was definitive. Christie asserts that the spot is missing, while Mears and Sherwood say – looking at all of the conflicting data – that we don’t know. Either position seems reasonable to this amateur. Saying the existence of a hot-spot has been proven is not reasonable.

Thank you, franktoo, for your discussion that supports my bald assertion that the tropical tropospheric hot spot predicted by UN IPCC climate models does not exist. For ‘scientists’ to say that it could/does exist because nobody has proven that it doesn’t exist is purest pseudo science; academic malfeasance (fraud) designed to support an activist agenda.

Re: “I complained that neither of Atomsky’s papers demonstrated that the predicted hot spot exists. And since the abstract of neither of these papers made any claims about the existence of a hot spot, the authors of these papers obviously don’t believe they have made a significant contribution to the hot spot controversy. “

Nope.

First, you should read papers beyond their abstracts, since abstracts tend to be short and not discuss everything in the paper. By your implausible logic, if something isn’t mentioned in the abstract, then it doesn’t exist in the rest of that paper. Which means that most of the paper doesn’t exist. That’s ridiculous. You’re basically trying to act as if the papers don’t show what they show, by willfully ignoring most of the paper. No sensible person is falling for that.

Second, you didn’t even read the abstract of the papers, though you’re acting as if you did. Once again, from one of the abstracts:

“Westward shift of western North Pacific tropical cyclogenesis
[…]
The westward shifting trends in the TUTT and TC genesis are associated with the enhanced tropical tropospheric warming, which is consistent with the response of the tropospheric temperature to global warming.”

And I already presented a figure from the paper, showing that the tropical upper tropospheric warming was enhanced relative to near-surface warming.

Re: “There is indeed a modest amount of amplification. But what is “T24 temperature”? That is the temperature of the whole tropical troposphere, not specifically the upper troposphere!
[…]
The problem is that satellites measure radiation and calculate temperature for a range of altitudes”

Oh look, you’re moving the goal-posts in order to avoid the evidence cited to you. Are you conveniently forgetting that you’re the one who mentioned satellite analyses?:

But ‘lo and behold, when you’re presented satellite and radiosonde analyses that show the hot spot, that’s not good enough for you. It’s clear that simply no amount of evidence will be good enough for you, since you’ll just ignore it, move the goal-posts in order to avoid it, etc.

Anyway, of course T24 (also known as TTT, which is TMT corrected for stratospheric cooling that contaminates TMT) would include contributions from across the troposphere. But TTT is the satellite-based analysis that is most representative of the mid-to-upper troposphere, as shown by a comparison of it to TLT, which is centered lower in the troposphere.

This is satellite-based analysis 101, Frank. You should know this, if you’re going to try and lecture people on the topic. By the way, RSS shows more tropical TTT warming than tropical TLT warming; 0.179 K/decade vs. 0.159 K/decade, respectively. There is not another weighted AMSU/MSU layer for RSS, NOAA/STAR, UW, etc. layer that will give you a more precise analysis of the the mid-to-upper troposphere than TTT.

If you don’t like the fact that satellite-based MSU/AMSU analyses show this for bulk layers across the troposphere, then you shouldn’t have been citing them in the first place as a reputable source.

Re: “IMO, the hot spot controversy is about the existence of amplified warming in the upper troposphere compared to the surface […]
[…]
The IPCC’s climate models predict amplification of 2.2 (about 1.8 to 2.5) between the surface and 250 mb, so this paper isn’t really about that predicted hot-spot.”

And you moved the goal-posts again, from claiming that it has to be amplification in the upper troposphere, to claiming it must be amplification at a specific atmospheric pressure level. Of course, it’s obvious why you did this: it allows you to evade the evidence cited from satellites, since most satellite analyses (GPS-RO is a possible exception, which you’ve also evaded) aren’t precise enough to narrow focus on particular pressure ranges.

Still, I’m curious to see how you’ll avoid evidence next; I need to fill out all my slots on contrarian bingo. So here you go:

It’s telling how you try to avoid these points by pulling something from back in 2013, instead of looking at what Sherwood and Mears have shown since then.

Re: “Christie asserts that the spot is missing, while Mears and Sherwood say – looking at all of the conflicting data – that we don’t know. Either position seems reasonable to this amateur. Saying the existence of a hot-spot has been proven is not reasonable.”

First, not really; manufacturing false doubt won’t work on me. For those who actually read the scientific literature instead of just distorting 2013 articles, it’s pretty clear what Mears and Sherwood actually said. They both published analyses showing the hot spot exists. Please try reading them.

Second, science deals in evidence, not proof, since science is neither math nor formal logic. You demanding that something in science be “proven” is just you trying to unjustifiably increase the epistemic standards in order to avoid scientific evidence you find inconvenient. If you’re still confused on what science does, then the National Academy of Sciences has a nice explanation below:

“From a philosophical perspective, science never proves anything—in the manner that mathematics or other formal logical systems prove things—because science is fundamentally based on observations. Any scientific theory is thus, in principle, subject to being refined or overturned by new observations. In practical terms, however, scientific uncertainties are not all the same. Some scientific conclusions or theories have been so thoroughly examined and tested, and supported by so many independent observations and results, that their likelihood of subsequently being found to be wrong is vanishingly small. Such conclusions and theories are then regarded as settled facts.”https://www.nap.edu/read/12782/chapter/4#21

In any event, you’ve already been cited plenty of scientific evidence of the hot spot’s existence. So we can drop your false dichotomy of:

1) the hot spot is proven to exist
2) the hot spot is missing
3) we don’t know

There’s at least one other option:

4) we know there are multiple lines of consilent evidence showing the hot spot exists.

Re: “I complained that neither of Atomsky’s papers demonstrated that the predicted hot spot exists. And since the abstract of neither of these papers made any claims about the existence of a hot spot, the authors of these papers obviously don’t believe they have made a significant contribution to the hot spot controversy. “

Nope.

First, you should read papers beyond their abstracts, since abstracts tend to be short and not discuss everything in the paper. By your implausible logic, if something isn’t mentioned in the abstract, then it doesn’t exist in the rest of that paper. Which means that most of the paper doesn’t exist. That’s ridiculous. You’re basically trying to act as if the papers don’t show what they show, by willfully ignoring most of the paper. No sensible person is falling for that.

Second, you didn’t even read the abstract of the papers, though you’re acting as if you did. Once again, from one of the abstracts:

“Westward shift of western North Pacific tropical cyclogenesis
[…]
The westward shifting trends in the TUTT and TC genesis are associated with the enhanced tropical tropospheric warming, which is consistent with the response of the tropospheric temperature to global warming.”

And I already presented a figure from the paper, showing that the tropical upper tropospheric warming was enhanced relative to near-surface warming.

Re: “There is indeed a modest amount of amplification. But what is “T24 temperature”? That is the temperature of the whole tropical troposphere, not specifically the upper troposphere!
[…]
The problem is that satellites measure radiation and calculate temperature for a range of altitudes”

Oh look, you’re moving the goal-posts in order to avoid the evidence cited to you. Are you conveniently forgetting that you’re the one who mentioned satellite analyses?:

But ‘lo and behold, when you’re presented satellite and radiosonde analyses that show the hot spot, that’s not good enough for you. It’s clear that simply no amount of evidence will be good enough for you, since you’ll just ignore it, move the goal-posts in order to avoid it, etc.

Anyway, of course T24 (also known as TTT, which is TMT corrected for stratospheric cooling that contaminates TMT) would include contributions from across the troposphere. But TTT is the satellite-based analysis that is most representative of the mid-to-upper troposphere, as shown by a comparison of it to TLT, which is centered lower in the troposphere:

You should know this, Frank, if you’re going to try and lecture people on the topic. By the way, RSS shows more tropical TTT warming than tropical TLT warming; 0.179 K/decade vs. 0.159 K/decade, respectively. There is not another weighted AMSU/MSU layer for RSS, NOAA/STAR, UW, etc. layer that will give you a more precise analysis of the the mid-to-upper troposphere than TTT.

If you don’t like the fact that satellite-based MSU/AMSU analyses show this for bulk layers across the troposphere, then you shouldn’t have been citing them in the first place as a reputable source.

Re: “IMO, the hot spot controversy is about the existence of amplified warming in the upper troposphere compared to the surface […]
[…]
The IPCC’s climate models predict amplification of 2.2 (about 1.8 to 2.5) between the surface and 250 mb, so this paper isn’t really about that predicted hot-spot.”

And you moved the goal-posts again, from claiming that it has to be amplification in the upper troposphere, to claiming it must be amplification at a specific atmospheric pressure level. Of course, it’s obvious why you did this: it allows you to evade the evidence cited from satellites, since most satellite analyses (GPS-RO is a possible exception, which you’ve also evaded) aren’t precise enough to narrow focus on particular pressure ranges.

Still, I’m curious to see how you’ll avoid evidence next; I need to fill out all my slots on bingo. So here you go:

It’s telling how you try to avoid these points by pulling something from back in 2013, instead of looking at what Sherwood and Mears have shown since then.

Re: “Christie asserts that the spot is missing, while Mears and Sherwood say – looking at all of the conflicting data – that we don’t know. Either position seems reasonable to this amateur. Saying the existence of a hot-spot has been proven is not reasonable.”

First, not really; manufacturing false doubt won’t work on me. For those who actually read the scientific literature instead of just distorting 2013 articles, it’s pretty clear what Mears and Sherwood actually said. They both published analyses showing the hot spot exists. Please try reading them.

Second, science deals in evidence, not proof, since science is neither math nor formal logic. You demanding that something in science be “proven” is just you trying to unjustifiably increase the epistemic standards in order to avoid scientific evidence you find inconvenient.

“The NIPCC report, prepared under supervision of the Heartland Institute, is no different, but the missing caveats are far larger and more important. The IPCC is guilty of attempted murder of our fossil fuel based economy.”

The clear implication of my words (and my intent) was that – if you believe the NIPCC report – the IPCC [would be] guilty of attempted murder of our fossil fuel economy. Obviously, I don’t think the NIPCC tells the whole story either. My point is that in a criminal trial for murder, both sides are allowed to present their best arguments and have them rebutted. That is the way policy should be made: No one elected rich academic scientists from ivory towers to make policy decisions about climate change, which is what they are doing when they omit much needed caveats from SPMs.

It is true that policymakers are fallible. President Truman begged for a one-handed economist, because because all the advice he received was: On one hand, … One the other hand, … The second President Bush disdained such advice, assuming that such advise meant the advisor lacked confidence in his judgment. President Trump disdains all experts. However, we are scientists, and ethical science includes all of the caveats. Otherwise we deserve no more respect than ambulance-chasing attorneys and politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths.

Atomsky: Sherwood’s method for homogenizing radiosondes with wind data was first reported in 2008. Sherwood was one of the participants In the 2013 discussion at Climatedialogue, neither Sherwood nor Mears claimed Sherwood’s method had resolved the controversy over the hot spot.

You cited his Sherwood’s 2015 refinement of that work, which didn’t appreciable change his 2008 conclusion that a hot-spot existed in the HOMOGENIZED data. In that paper, Sherwood admits that: “tropospheric warming does not reach quite as high in the tropics and subtropics as predicted in typical models”. One problem with homogenization is that a great variety of homogenization methods had been explored for more than a decade. When you analyze data dozens of different ways, you are likely to find one version that tells you what you wanted to know merely by chance. The result can be confirmation bias or even “torturing data until it confesses”. This problem would disappear if the homogenized data unexpectedly explained a phenomena independent from the hot spot.

Given the long controversy about the hot-spot, any researcher who discovers something new and powerful about the hot-spot is going put that conclusion in the abstract, not bury it in the body of the paper. It is perfectly acceptable for you to say that – in your opinion – the data in paper X proves that a hot spot exists, but the paper’s authors haven’t reached this conclusion and the paper’s peer reviewers haven’t agreed the data warrants reaching this conclusion, if it isn’t in the abstract.

Is Sherwood (2015) the definitive paper on homogenization of radiosonde data? When Mears and Wentz compared their latest version of RSS to radiosonde data from four different homogenization methods. And they complain: “comparisons with total column water vapor over the oceans suggest that the new dataset [RSS 4.0] may not show enough warming in the tropics”.

Atomsky complained: “And you moved the goal-posts again, from claiming that it has to be amplification in the upper troposphere, to claiming it must be amplification at a specific atmospheric pressure level. Of course, it’s obvious why you did this: it allows you to evade the evidence cited from satellites, since most satellite analyses (GPS-RO is a possible exception, which you’ve also evaded) aren’t precise enough to narrow focus on particular pressure ranges.”

The scientific method is to perform experiments that attempt to invalidate a theory or hypothesis. The biggest amplification in warming rates occurs between the surface and about 250 mb, so this is where a statistically significant inconsistency is most likely to be found. This is where the “goal post” should be located – I didn’t move it there. Popper famously complained that too many scientists perform experiments designed to confirm, not invalidate, what they already believe. Radiosondes, but not models, show less warming at the top of the boundary layer than at the surface, so I’m suspicious when the temperature at 850 mbar replaces surface temperature in any analysis.

Satellite measurements of warming in the upper tropical troposphere have less vertical resolution, so it is possible that satellite measurements could show amplification consistent with a hot spot (given confidence intervals), while radiosondes do not. Satellites are plagued by orbital drift and decay and there is no consensus about how best to correct these problems. As best I can tell, neither of the latest versions have not been used to address the hot-spot controversy, and earlier analyses relied on records that are now considered to be obsolete.

Atomsky also complains: “manufacturing false doubt won’t work on me. For those who actually read the scientific literature instead of just distorting 2013 articles, it’s pretty clear what Mears and Sherwood actually said. They both published analyses showing the hot spot exists.”

Mears and Sherwood may have published analyses showing that some sort of hot spot exists, but at Climatedialogue they where telling us what they concluded from ALL of the evidence, given the limitations of that evidence! Radiosonde data homogenized with the help of wind data was barely mentioned! Since you refuse to accept the judgment of Mears and Sherwood in 2013, it isn’t clear that ANY evidence could create doubt in your mind. At a minimum, you should have said that papers A, B and C published since then might have changed their opinion. I wish a more definitive review of all of the evidence had been written since 2013.

The Kevin Drum article at Mother Jones (“We Need Radical Thinking on Climate Change”) nicely illustrates the effect I describe in my post about misuse of RCP8.5. Alarmists have misused, exaggerated and lied so much about the projections for climate change that they casually insert outlandish claims in their works – unnoticed by most readers.

“…and it would only change the dates for planetary suicide by a decade or so. “

No footnote, no details. So we don’t know this “date” or the research that gives it. Oddly, a few paragraphs before Drum describes the result of wild claims – like the one he makes:

For 20 years we’ve tried to scare the public into adopting big climate plans that require real sacrifice, and for 20 years we’ve failed.

It is embarrassing. They’ve got the facts. Arctic warming is seasonal (winter half year), and has taken place during the Pause when the planet was barely warming, not during the 1980-2000 period of more rapid warming. Yet they arrive to the wrong pre-determined conclusion.

The answer is surprisingly simple and opposite. Available to anybody with a modicum of heat transfer, and Arctic winter conditions knowledge. That heat is not Arctic amplification it is part of the answer to where is the heat going during the Pause. And part of the answer to what has caused global warming. The Arctic is one of the planet refrigerators and when it warms in winter is because it is refrigerating more. So simple, so unscary.

Morons. They are clowns undeserving the salaries they get. Pawns in a political game to create a false State of Fear. I hope they leave to learn how wrong they are.

Javier
How did the Arctic sea ice area forecast work out on 24th Feb. The day following forecast the total area nose dived from 14.705 to 14.556, recovered and peaked again probably the last for the year at 14.777 Msqkm on the 13th March. Big high over the top check the 200hPa animation. Must have been that bullish forecast. I am buying a lottery ticket this week, any tips on the numbers. Keep smiling, keep forecasting.

Javier – “That heat is not Arctic amplification it is part of the answer to where is the heat going during the Pause. And part of the answer to what has caused global warming”.

Not only the pause, it has been noticeable since about 1990 when NH temperatures started moving upwards. The Arctic is the weak pole therefore most of the tropical heat ends up there and has very little choice in the matter, it is punted there. The theory that if the equator to pole temperature gradient drops the circulation will significantly reduce is nonsense. Tropical convective heat is driven there and that in turn reduces the gradient.

Check out the mirror effect in the ncep cfsr cfsv2 global 2-meter temperature anomaly 2005. There are 10 mirror effect between the NH and SH that no-one seems to notice, and occur other years but are particularly noticeable during strong years. The SH goes down and the NH goes up. Willis noticed the same effect the CERES data 2000 to 2017 (WUWT post) and stated that he had no answer, that’s why I like him as it gives a clear understanding of what we know. It is when we state what we don’t know in a clear and bold way, when the CAGW crowd scream alarm we just have to ask them what the mechanism is – please explain. Judith Curry stated in 2016 in Congress that the mechanisms that control sea ice extent are not known, and later that the mechanisms that control Tropical Cyclone rapid intensification were unknown, another champion of stating the facts.

The temperature mirror effect confirms that temperature anomalies are NOT random, heat lying around on recliners waiting to be measured, but in fact are a manufactured driven outcome from atmospheric dynamics. From my knowledge no-one ever follows up on the local cause / conditions of temperature anomalies? I have and the only thing that changed was the direction of the wind.

How do we know that tropical convection / up-welling is driving atmosphere pole ward in the modern warming period? One indicator is that in 2017 three TC formed in close proximity starting about 2nd Sept (Irma, Jose and Katia). Prior to the threesome, Tropical latitude pressure was rising, increasing atmosphere displacement southward, disturbing and reducing Antarctic SIE and warming the surface. As the three TC increased all peaking on the 8th and 9th and then progressively fading, Antarctic sea ice extent increased strongest between the 3rd and 8th, then increased at a lesser grade until peaking on the 12th September, when the SIE started reducing again. SIE increased by half a Msqkm over 9 days. The TC sent the atmosphere vertically allowing stilling and cooling down south and SIE increase. This is not unusual, 2014 maximum – same reason. The Arctic SIE minimum of 4.611 Msqkm also occurred on the 12th, stayed low for a week then increased. Pretty cool eh! Atmospheric connections, the fourth element.

So yes, your statement regarding Arctic warming is 100% correct. It is all migrant atmosphere from the tropics doing what it is supposed to do. Atmospheric dynamics control the temperature anomalies.

Ozonebust,
I don’t remember forecasting anything about sea ice on February. Perhaps you can remind me what my exact words were that induced you to think that I was forecasting. As far as I know in that article I referred only to the data available until the day before. For what I see it still looks like March sea ice extent is going to be higher this year than seven of the last 13 years.

There are 10 mirror effect between the NH and SH that no-one seems to notice

There are not one but two hypotheses about heat transport compensation mechanisms. One is inter-hemispheric, known as the bipolar see-saw. It is essential to explain polar temperature connections between both poles during the last glacial period. The other one is the Bjerkness compensation, that although enunciated for intra-hemispheric compensation between atmospheric and oceanic heat transport, it should have to make room for any heat crossing the Equator.

How do we know that tropical convection / up-welling is driving atmosphere pole ward in the modern warming period?

I would describe it in terms of atmospheric zonal versus meridional circulation. One opposes poleward heat transport and the other one promotes it. Changes between both are reflected in changes in the Atmospheric Angular Momentum that produce changes in the speed of rotation of the Earth measured as length-of-day changes.

Javier
Just having fun Javier, as soon as you “commented” on the coming year Arctic SIE took an immediate dip, that’s all.

And you did say this – “Antarctic sea-ice is also growing this year with respect to last year, so global sea-ice extent is going to see an important jump this year”. Now that’s interesting given the mechanism that control SIE are not publicly known. However, like you I expect SIE to increase “on an average” yearly basis. It is a key index of tropical heat release.

Also – “Arctic sea-ice has stubbornly resisted the very warm years between 2015-2017 caused by the big El Niño”. The key reason that Arctic SIE in 2015 didn’t nose dive to a new minimum was the 2015 East Pacific Tropical Cyclone season right on the door step, the second largest ACE during the satellite era fueled by the local El Nino conditions with a large part of energy going vertical. Hurricane Alex in the Atlantic in January, with cold feet?.

When you are referring to the 2015-2017 year, I assume that you are talking Arctic SIE minimum? I tend not to focus on the minimum because it is not representative of the full year. The 2016 year had the second lowest minimum, but the lowest average SIE based on the entire year which to me is more meaningful story. Compared to the highest annual average in 1982, 2016 was the lowest average, 18% lower than 1982. Now if the doomsters think that is a catastrophe, I need re-calibrating. The definition of annual variation needs changing to annual average as it is only at the low value for one day..

Look at how fast the Arctic SIE recovers after the minimum most years, like a switch. Nothing changes locally during the last week of decline and the first week of increase.

Second Subject
Thanks for the information, always appreciated. Yes, there is inter-hemispheric transport, but that is not what I was really suggesting. There is a compounding atmospheric effect from as early as May related to volume and efficiency of convection, transport, downstream atmospheric barriers that drive the system and cause periods of high variability. Fascinating subjects such as what controls the Arctic SIE rate of decline and sets the minimum date, Antarctic maximum, what sets the TC season start date, increase in activity in July, TC intensification, etc. How is it identified in the available data? There is a reason for everything, it is just a case of finding it. A most interesting and rewarding three years, I am happy with my conclusions, others may disagree. Finding the mechanisms is critical. Earths atmosphere is repetitive with slight annual variations, that’s the only reason they can copy parts of it in models.

Third subject
I generally agree with your first sentence but have no cause to consider the second. The period from 1980 onward, using daily satellite data is my focus, a microcosm of your own subject. The earth to pole temperature gradient is passive, however the earth to pole pressure gradient that increases between May and September has immense potential both currently and exiting an ice age when both poles are colder. We see a mild result in the Arctic both in SIE and thickness, in the past 40 years.
Always a pleasure, regards, Martin.

Yes. I was lucky in picking the date of that article in terms of impact. Tamino dedicated me another of his articles. He has been attacking my views since 2015 and every September Arctic SIE supports me a little bit more and him a little bit less.

I find that comparing annual averages destroys most of the information of what is happening in the Arctic. For example summers have become cooler north of 80°, while winters have become much warmer. Even if SIE is driven mainly by the amount of warm water reaching the Arctic from the North Atlantic Current, air temperature does have some effect. The change in SIE trend has taken place in minimum extent, and is so small in maximum extent that it is not significative.

Look at how fast the Arctic SIE recovers after the minimum most years, like a switch

Some people that understood the graph were quite surprised. Melting is unpredictable, but refreezing is not. Tamino has no clue about anything except numbers. Good luck understanding climate from statistical analysis.

I have been more focused on winter atmospheric organization, but your comments are very interesting. I do believe pressure and temperature gradients are key to understanding climate. The difficulty is putting everything together.

many compensate each other resulting in a weak but robust net global ocean cooling during and after El Niño.

That is what I’been saying. What is commonly said, that OHC builds during La Niña and drops a lot during El Niño, thereby heating the atmosphere, is largely incorrect. So it’s gone from “lost OHC heats the atmosphere” to “weak, but robust, cooling”, and when I deep ARGO is finally in, it will go to weak cooling.

“This study examines changes in Earth’s energy budget during and after the global warming “pause” (or “hiatus”) using observations from the Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System. We find a marked 0.83 ± 0.41 Wm−2 reduction in global mean reflected shortwave (SW) top-of-atmosphere (TOA) flux during the three years following the hiatus that results in an increase in net energy into the climate system. A partial radiative perturbation analysis reveals that decreases in low cloud cover are the primary driver of the decrease in SW TOA flux. The regional distribution of the SW TOA flux changes associated with the decreases in low cloud cover closely matches that of sea-surface temperature warming, which shows a pattern typical of the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. Large reductions in clear-sky SW TOA flux are also found over much of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in the northern hemisphere. These are associated with a reduction in aerosol optical depth consistent with stricter pollution controls in China and North America. A simple energy budget framework is used to show that TOA radiation (particularly in the SW) likely played a dominant role in driving the marked increase in temperature tendency during the post-hiatus period.” https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/6/3/62

A comparison of bioclimatic conditions on Franz Josef Land (the Arctic) between the turn of the 19th to 20th century and present day “Air temperature in 1899–1914 during three expeditions was 1.8–4.6 °C lower than the modern period in winter (Oct–Apr). However, during the 1930/31 expedition it was 4.6 °C warmer than the years 1981–2010. Our results relate to what has been called the ‘1930s warming’, referred to by various authors in the literature as the ETCW or the ETCAW.”

“In individual months, the highest negative anomalies were identified in Calm Bay (hereafter CB) in January 1914 (-?7.4 °C) and in February 1900 (-?6.8 °C). In contrast, during the 1930/31 expedition, it was 4.6 °C warmer than the present day in CB [Calm Bay]. Such a high thermal anomaly was influenced by a warm autumn and winter, especially February 1931, when the average monthly temperature was 10.7 °C higher than in the modern period.”

This is from the the US Weather Bureau in 1922:
“The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.”

The article by Lenny Smith and Erica Thompson: *Escape from model land* needs to be read and widely distributed. It’s an excellent discussion of the Ludic Fallacy in logic, and vitiates the current efforts to refine and improve models in climate-like problems (though not in weather-like problems).

Does air pollution really kill nearly 800,000 people in Europe and 9 million worldwide each year?

Industry, technology and medicine produce pollution. They have increased human lifespan from the 30s to the 80s. Pollution included.

If we undo the industrial revolution (which is part of the agricultural revolution) then life expectancy will go back to the 30s.

Pollution is not a significant factor in human lifespan. It may give or take a few weeks or months. Socioeconomic status gives or takes decades. Of far more importance than a clean environment, is being rich. If it’s life and death you are talking about.

… a required level of accuracy would have to be to the 1,000ths of a degree. The problem with that, ARGO robotic buoys are up to 100 times less accurate than that. “The Hadfield study,” says JoNova, “compared the new ARGO robotic buoys to other ways of measuring ocean temperatures in a slice across the North Atlantic. The results are fairly devastating for claims that the oceans are heating by 0.005° C per year. Hadfield et al found that the Argo network made errors around 0.5° C, and up to 2° C in one area.”

My disproof to the 3rd law of thermodynamics shows the deficiency of the current formulation. It does not distinguish between fermions and bosons. This is not surprising because the 3rd law came before the discovery of fermions and bosons. The law was formulated from classical thermodynamics without the fundamental knowledge from quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics. Here is an example to illustrate this point.

A radiating body loses heat by radiation. As a result, the temperature of the body decreases. The classical formulation of entropy (S):
S = Q/T
Where: Q is heat content of system; T is temperature
In isolated system, the heat radiated is included in Q but T pertains to the radiating body. Radiation does not have temperature unless it is absorbed by matter that registers a change in temperature. Radiation can freely travel in space as sunlight does. Thus radiation increases the entropy of the system since Q is constant (due to conservation of energy) but T is decreasing.

In quantum mechanics, radiation is particles called photons. These are bosons that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. In statistical mechanics, particles have entropy. At the fundamental level, entropy is nothing more than disorder of particles. But classical thermodynamics does not even have particles in its entropy formula. The third law must be reformulated to conform to quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics.

Third law of thermodynamics (Strangelove statement):
Entropy is proportional to temperature and number of particles.

The 3rd law is expressed mathematically in the Strangelove entropy formula:
S = k ln ((a + b T)^n (1 + c T’)^m)
Where: T is kinetic temperature of fermions, T’ is kinetic temperature of bosons, n is number of fermions, m is number of bosons, ln is natural logarithm; k is Boltzmann constant; a is number of energy states below Fermi energy; b and c are proportionality constants

The distributions can be plotted in a graph. The graphical representation is useful because it enables me to derive a fundamental law of nature from a trivial axiom of geometry. Axiom: the number of line segments in a line is proportional to the length of the line. Translate this geometric axiom to the language of statistical mechanics. Line segments translate to energy states. The line translates to range of energies. The length of line is the difference between the lowest energy state (ground state) and highest energy state.

However, the curve is an asymptote. It extends to infinity. Expressed in calculus, the probability approaches zero as particle energy approaches infinity. The distributions are continuous probability. Quantum mechanics has discrete probability. Hence, the distributions are approximations of discrete probability. Particle energy does not really extend to infinity. There is a finite upper limit corresponding to a minimum or cut-off probability where it is considered zero. The highest energy state and length of line are proportional to kinetic temperature T. Thus I can write the length of line as a linear equation of T:
a + b T = F
1 + c T = B
Since the geometric axiom states that the number of line segments is proportional to the length of the line, F and B are the number of energy states for fermions and bosons respectively. The first terms are constants representing the number of energy states below or at a certain energy level. For bosons, it is the ground state and the constant is 1. For fermions, it is the Fermi energy and a is greater than 1. b and c are proportionality constants.

I apply probability theory to derive an equation for W in Boltzmann entropy formula. The number of permutations W of N distinct objects taken r at a time is:
W = N^r
Apply the formula to fermions and bosons:
W1 = F^n
W2 = B^m
n and m are the number of fermions and bosons respectively. Substitute the equations for F and B:
W1 = (a + b T)^n
W2 = (1 + c T’)^m
T and T’ are temperature of fermions and bosons respectively.

In this cycle, Nino 3.4 has been fluctuating all along. It looks like March will have a much higher anomaly than February did, which was larger than January’s. If it does falter, we will off to highest ENSO neutral temps in the instrument record. Nothing to get excited about:

The implication of this is that you might be waiting for quite a while for your next “real” (Bjerknes) el Nino, as opposed to general mid-Pacific warmings that are called “el Nino Modoki” but are not really el Nino. The Pacific has changed to a different ground state compared to the 70’s to 90’s.

Since solar activity has had a large impact on past climate, it should not be too con-troversial to assume that the 20th century increase in solar activity must also have had aninfluence on the observed temperature increase. If the Sun has had a significant influenceover the 20th century temperature increase, then climate sensitivity has to be on the lowside. Ziskina and Shaviv82useda simple model to estimate the relevant forcing over the20th century, by constraining the fits to the observed temperature, including anthropogenic(greenhouse gases and aerosols) and a solar contribution. The result is a 20th century so-lar forcing of 0.8±0.4 W/m2anda climate sensitivity of 0.25±0.09 K/(Wm-2).These numbersshould be compared with the IPCC-estimated radiative forcing on climate from solar activitybetween 1750 and 2011 of around 0.05 W/m2anda climate sensitivity of 0.9±0.3 K/(Wm-2).1Therefore, with a larger role for the Sun, the implications on future climate change will besignificant. Such a result should warrant further research into the solar impact on climate.

That’s quite a difference:
The result is a 20th century solar forcing of 0.8±0.4 W/m2

Let us start by considering why some people catastrophize – that is, on hearing uncertain news, they imagine the worst possible outcome. After all, it is not uncommon and those who catastrophize seem to do it a lot. Catastrophizers tend to be fairly anxious people. Whether this characteristic is principally genetic or more the result of learning is unknown. High levels of anxiety are extremely unpleasant, so we look for ways to discharge those unpleasant feelings as quickly as possible. If a catastrophizer is told something inconclusive – for example, if they go to a doctor and are asked to have tests – they look for a way to feel in control again immediately. They learn to choose the worst possible outcome because it allows for the greatest sense of relief when they are reassured.

Yes. Like “extra CO2 is beneficial”.
Or “Uproot all wind turbines because they do more harm than good.”
Or “The only climate change to fear is glacial inception”.
Or “Nuclear is the only low carbon energy.”
Or “Most recent climate change is natural.”

OK – maybe not that radical.
Scratch radical, lets go back to grovelingly subservient.
“Yes Sir David, all CO2 emission is bad and must be stopped.”
“Lets undo the industrial revolution, what could possibly go wrong?”